With the Presidential
inauguration nearly upon us, we’re all focusing our attention on the
White House as President Obama gets ready to move out and President-Elect Trump
gets ready to move in.So of course the
question foremost in my mind is “What about chickens at the White House?”A natural progression of thought, right?

Amazingly, there’s a dearth of
information on the topic.For instance,
when I Google, “Chicken White House” I get a lot of results for the “White House Chicken” restaurant chain.That’s
followed by some fried chicken recipes by various former residents of the White
House.And then there are a few articles
where the writer thinks that the White House is displaying cowardice.Which brings up the question, “Why did
‘chicken’ come to mean the same thing as ‘coward’?”The person who created that meaning for the
word never met my brave little rooster, Emile!

Anyway, I challenged myself to
uncover what I could regarding Presidential chickens, and was eventually able
to uncover a pretty sizable trove of material about White House pets, but
unfortunately, only a paltry bit of information about White House
chickens. But here goes.

A faithful
reader of this blog asked this question during last July's heatwave,
"Dear Randy's Chicken Blog, What are you and your chickens doing to beat
the heat? Your fan (who is now in front of a fan), Katie" Her question
resulted in the blog post I called "Hipster Hens Hate
Heat!".

And now it’s
December and how the weather has changed!
Last night we hit 24 below zero and the predicted high for today is
destined to wind up somewhere in the negative numbers. So the time has arrived for
me to write a blog entitled "Hipster Hens Are Completely Disgruntled With
Cold, Too!" But since that title’s
a little unwieldy, I’m going with “Battening Down the Chickens.” That’s probably a more appropriate title anyway,
since this post is really about preparing your coop for cold weather.

Veronica
the Easter Egger turns herself into a cold-resistant
feather ball by tucking her head under her wing.

For
starters, here are the three absolute basic requirements to keep your chickens
happy and healthy during the cold winter months:

Are you considering the
possibility of having a few pretty little hens pecking around your lawn? You should!
Chickens are the best! But before
you head out to pick out some little peepers, let me introduce you to one
important and necessary fact: Chickens are
pooping maniacs! I can’t say that I’ve
conducted any scientifically controlled measurements in my coop, but the
estimates that I’ve read tell me that one chicken produces somewhere in the range
of 50 pounds of excrement in a year. Assuming
you’ve got a hen that weights five pounds, that means that in one year she
makes ten times her weight in poultry-doo.
Or to look at it another way, suppose you’ve got a really good laying hen
who produces 300 eggs in a year and that each egg weighs 60 grams. If you do the math, that hen produces about
40 pounds of eggs in a year—so I think it is safe to say that a chicken’s per capita manufacture of guano outpaces her egg production.

This, of course, is all an
esoteric discussion unless you’re considering getting some backyard
chickens. Once you’ve got chickens,
figuring out what to do with all that poo becomes a real dilemma. It’s important to keep the coop clean. It isn’t healthy for your birds to be walking
around in an accumulation of their own excrement. It’s also important for them to have dry
litter. Chicken poop is 75% water by
weight, so the bedding can become soggy pretty quickly. Also, consider the fact that chickens poop pretty
much 24/7—even in their sleep. The area
under the roost can develop a pretty significant pile of droppings after just
one night. And then the chickens will
hop off the roost in the morning and happily scratch through it. For sweet and lovable animals, they do have
some pretty disgusting habits. OK, you
still want chickens? Good. Let’s talk about how to deal with the
mess.

The last few days I’ve often caught myself humming the Warren
Zevon song “Lawyers,
Guns, and Money.”I think the song
is playing in a loop in my subconscious mind – for obvious reasons. No, you don’t
need to worry that the Hipster Hens and I are incarcerated in some foreign
prison as the song lyrics would suggest.But I did allow ads to be placed
on my blog—you probably noticed.And I
did have to jump through a few legal hoops in order to do that.So there you go—money and lawyers.Please trust me when I say that “Randy’s
Chicken Blog" is not involved with gun running.It’s just that my subconscious mind doesn’t know any songs that refer to
just lawyers and money.

So what’s up with the ads?
Let’s just say that if you ever anticipate getting some backyard
chickens so you can have really fresh, humanely produced, locally sourced, high
quality eggs and save a few bucks, you should go for it. And if you do, you’ll achieve half of the
goals outlined in the previous sentence.
Don’t expect that you’re going to get cheap eggs. If that’s what you’re after, stick with the
grocery store. Everything I said about
the eggs is true, though. You’ll also
discover that chickens are amazing—beautiful, interesting, intelligent, amusing—if
Emma Watson was poultry instead of an actress, she’d be a chicken! So then, if you’re like me, you’ll give all
your chickens names and then when they become “hens of a certain age” and aren’t
laying so well anymore, you’ll be horrified when anybody suggests the stew
pot. “Eat my sweet elderly hen? Are you nuts?! We’re talking about Florence here!” And then, if you’re like me, you’ll go out
and get more chickens when Florence can no longer provide the fix for your egg
habit, and no doubt many of those new hens will be poor egg layers, but you’ll
like them anyway because they lay unusually colored eggs or have really bizarre and
beautiful crests, or really unusual feathers.
And then you’ll have to build a few more coops so everybody has enough
room. And, of course, with all those
chickens hanging around, your chicken feed bills will skyrocket. I wish the guy who started using the phrase “chicken
feed” to refer to cheap stuff would pay my feed bill! So then, if you’re like me you’ll have
started writing a blog about your chickens by this point, and it will occur to
you that if you monetized the blog, you could make a little spare change to
fill all those hungry beaks.

So that’s why there are ads.

My ads are placed on the blog by a Google advertising program
called “Adsense”. While Google claims that the ads will be
relevant, I don’t have much control over what shows up. I can block ads that I deem to be
nonpertinent or offensive. The “Date
Foreign Women” ads went away pretty fast, and I’ve blocked a few others as
well. So if you see any ads that you
find objectionable, please let me know and I’ll deal with them. In addition to Adsense I’ve also joined the Amazon Associate Program, which allows
me to link to specific products sold through Amazon. The way it works is that if you click on an
ad or an Amazon link, it doesn’t cost you anything, but the Hipster Hens and I
get a little pocket change.

All the legal niceties are now spelled out in great detail at
the bottom of each page of my blog. I’ve
tried to run through all the necessary information without being
teeth-grindingly dull, so take a look!

And while you’re down there, read the new mission
statement. I did spend some time thinking
about why I write this blog in order to capture it in the statement. I think these four bullets sum up the inspiration
and motivation behind every post I write:

My
chickens are really cool.

All
chickens are really cool.

The
majority of chickens being raised for meat or egg production, in spite of their
inherent coolness, are treated cruelly. You can help make changes by your
purchasing habits. Educate yourself! Read labels! Check company websites!

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Whew! I think that pretty much covers it!

Disclosure Statement

Starting November 17, 2016, an advertising program Google Adsense began to run on my blog. Your clicks on the ads shown on the blog don’t cost you anything but may result in a small commission for Randy’s Chicken Blog. While Google has guaranteed that the ads placed on my site will be relevant, I don’t have a great deal of control over which ads are displayed. I’ll do my best to block any content that goes against my values or that I believe to be questionable.

On November 27, 2016, Randy’s Chicken Blog became a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon. If you click on a sponsored Amazon link and make a purchase Randy’s Chicken Blog may receive a small commission. Again, this costs you nothing, but it allows me and the Hipster Hens a little pocket change.

Mission Statement

Hi! I’m Randy and this is my chicken blog. I write it, edit it, take the pictures, feed the chickens, hug the chickens, etc. I blog because a few years ago, I got these chickens…I had no idea when I got my first chickens that I would get attached to them and become this sentimental, crazy old chicken guy. I had no idea that each chicken would have its own personality, that chickens had such a huge range of vocalizations that they literally “talk” to each other, that they have this amazing, intricate social structure, or that there would be so much drama in the coop—love, conflict, friendship, sex, motherhood, anxiety—a virtual soap opera playing out before my eyes every day.

So I write these little vignettes about my birds that are mostly whimsical but also mostly true. In the process of telling my stories I also pass along a variety of views and opinions which are completely my own. Please also bear in mind that the information I share regarding my care of my chickens has come from my experience caring for my flock. I’m not a veterinarian and I have had no formal education in any kind of chickenology.

There are a few facts that I hope to get across to anybody who regularly reads my blog:

1.My chickens are really cool.

2.All chickens are really cool.

3.The majority of chickens being raised for meat or egg production, in spite of their inherent coolness, are treated cruelly. You can help make changes by your purchasing habits. Educate yourself! Read labels! Check company websites!